Buck Stove ash shutter and door leaking air

[Uncle Meat]

Hey all, new to the site and wanted to introduce myself and ask a few questions. I live in northeastern Oklahoma and am a geologist by trade. I like to hunt ducks and fish. About 2.5 years ago, the wife and I bought a house with a Buck Model 80 ZC. I have been cutting a splitting my own wood by hand. This is our first house with a wood burner and we have been using it regularly the past two winters. As I've gotten a little more used to using the stove I pretty much have gotten the hang of it. The stove appears to draft well, burns clean and heats up the house well.

My questions has to do with the ash pan shutter on the inside of the stove and the front door. The shutter and door both have gaps that let air get pulled into the stove. The shutter, being on the left side of the chamber floor, causes uneven burning as the air flow fires the wood harder on that side. The gap in the door I just noticed yesterday and is approximately an 1/8-inch at the widest portion of the gap. If this were one of your stoves, would you take out the ash pan shutter and seal the floor somehow? Is there a way to seal this shutter better? Regarding the door, should this gap be there at all or should the door seal real tight?

My concern is the overall control I have of the fire with the uncontrolled air being pulled into the stove and unintentionally creating drafting problems if I seal the stove too tight. When I stoke the stove and things get rolling, my internal catalyst thermometer sometimes gets into the "TOO HOT" range. I want better control over that if possible. I'm not an overly cautious person, hence being a duck hunter, but the whole TOO HOT deal kinda puckers me up a little.

What do y'all think?

 

[shawneyboy]

First off welcome. I am sorry I can't answer your question but I can almost gaurentee that someone here can. If for some reason you don't get an answer by friday, either repost with a different title something that asks Buck owners to help ya, or maybe just bump this thread. But as I said welcome!

 

[remkel]

I do not know much about your stove and looked at the manuals really quick. you can get the manuals at http://www.buckstove.com/stovemanuals.html

The shutter I cannot help with as i have not seen this model stove. The gap in the door would seem to me to be a gasket issue. I would start to see what the condition of the gaskets are an possibly replace them. It sounds like you are getting too much air into the stove and I would not suspect this is how the door is supposed to be.

As was stated in the earlier post, there are a lot of people on this site that have not only more burning experience, but also more wisdom than I.

Good luck.

 

[pgmr]

We have the Model 80 (same as yours sans the ZC cabinet). Can you clarify what you mean about the door not sealing? The door will not touch the stove body metal-on-metal, since there is (or should be) a thick gasket around the perimeter of the door. You can check the gasket by pinching a piece of paper (a dollar bill would work) between the gasket and the stove and closing the handle with the normal closing force. If you can pull the paper out easily, then you should adjust the door latch or replace the gasket if needed.

As far as the ash pan lid in the firebox, if the seal is intact around the front of the pan itself, then you shouldn't be getting too much air through the gap in the lid. If you're not using the ash pan, you could seal the lid shut with furnace cement. I tried the ash pan a couple times and found it to be more messy than just shoveling out the ashes. Filled it up for additional insulation on the bottom of the stove and forget it's even there.

 

[Uncle Meat]

I checked the gasket around the door tonight and found that it should be replaced. The stove is hot right now so I'll check the seal in front of the ash pan tomorrow. Thanks for the replies